n the three. Barlow was moaning inwardly, "Poor
Bootea!"; Hodson, fingers pressed to both temples, was trying to think
this was all the mistaken outburst of an angry woman. The
strong-faced, honest, fearless soldier sitting in the chair could not
be a traitor--_could not be_.

Suddenly something went awry in the inflamed chambers of Elizabeth's
mind--as if an electric current had been abruptly shut off. She
hesitated; she had meant to say more; but there was a staggering
vacuity.

With an effort she grasped a wavering thing of tangibility, and said:
"I'm going now, father--to give the keys to the butler for breakfast.
You can question Captain Barlow."

Elizabeth turned and left the room; her feet were like dependents,
servants that she had to direct to carry her on her way. She did not
call to the butler, but went to her room, closed the door, flung
herself on the bed, face downward, and sobbed; tears that scalded
splashed her cheeks, and she beat passionately with clenched fist at
the pillow, beating, as she knew, at her heart. It was incredible,
this thing, her feelings.

"I don't care--I don't care--I never did!" she gasped.

But she did, and only now knew it.

"I was right--I'm glad--I'd say it again!"

But she would not, and she knew it. She knew that Barlow could not be
a traitor; she knew it; it was just a battered new love asserting
itself.

And below in the room the two men for a little sat not speaking of the
ghoulish thing. Barlow had drawn the papers from his pocket; he passed
them silently across the table.

Hodson, almost mechanically, had stretched a hand for them, and when
they were opened, and he saw the seal, and realised what they were,
some curious guttural sound issued from his lips as if he had waked in
affright from a nightmare. He pulled a drawer of the desk open, took
out a cheroot--and lighted it. Then he commenced to speak, slowly,
droppingly, as one speaks who has suddenly been detected in a crime.
He put a flat hand on the papers, holding them to the desk. And it was
Elizabeth he spoke of at first, as if the thing under his palm, that
meant danger to an empire, was subservient.

"Barlow, my boy," he said, "I'm old, I'm tired."

The Captain, looking into the drawn face, had a curious feeling that
Hodson was at least a hundred. There was a floaty wonderment in his
mind why the fifty-five-years'-service retirement rule had not been
enforced in the Colonel's case. Then